Our long national nightmare of coke cans looking different than usual has ended: Coca Cola has announced that it will scrap this year's white holiday-designed cans, and return to "time-honored red" next week. Why? "Sacrilege."

While the company has frequently rung in the holiday with special can designs, this was the first time it put regular Coke in a white can. Some consumers complained that it looked confusingly similar to Diet Coke's silver cans. Others felt that regular Coke tasted different in the white cans. Still others argued that messing with red bordered on sacrilege.

Coke said it became aware of consumer complaints through Internet postings and some telephone calls to the company. Many Internet comments have been critical of the white cans. "PEOPLE! Don't be a victim,'' wrote one consumer on Twitter, warning that mixing up Coke and Diet Coke is "a SHOCK to the palate!''

Another person accused Coke of "trickery,'' and still another called the white cans "blasphemy,'' among hundreds of tweets.